Nick wrote:
Alexander Zaitsev (1935-1971) was the first Soviet GM from Vladivostok.
His best result was his tie for first place in the 1968 Soviet Championship,
though he lost to GM Polugayevsky in the playoff. GM Zaitsev died of
thrombosis after an operation on his leg.

It has been hypothesized that GM Alexander Zaitsev might have become one of
the best Soviet GMs if he had been able to train and to compete regularly with
the stronger players available in Moscow or Leningrad. Would anyone care to
comment on that hypothesis? Thanks in advance.

--Nick

He was able to compete and he was one of the best, about that the 1968
result tells. Zaitsev was one of the many equals in Soviet chess in
between 1955-1975 among which the firsts were Botwinnik, Smyslov, Tal,
Petrosian and Spassky.

With all due respect to GM Lev Psakhis's past circumstances, GM Alexander
Zaitsev, in Vladivostok, was far more distant from the centres of Soviet chess.
If GM Zaitsev were still alive in Vladivostok today, however, then it might
be more convenient for him to compete against some Chinese GMs in Beijing.

With all due respect to GM Lev Psakhis's past circumstances, GM Alexander
Zaitsev, in Vladivostok, was far more distant from the centres of Soviet chess.
If GM Zaitsev were still alive in Vladivostok today, however, then it might
be more convenient for him to compete against some Chinese GMs in Beijing.

--Nick

Liquidating the geographical illiteracy, there is no significant
difference between Krasnoyarsk and Vladivostok from the cultural closeness to
Moscow point of view.

Moreover, considering A. Zaitsev was similar in age to B. Spassky, I
doubt he would be competing much today.

And the most important thing, Zaitsev was not disadvantaged and had
plenty of competitions. He died early, that is what stopped him, not the
geography.

I suppose one potential test of the "Vladivostok-Beijing" theory would be
to examine the playing patterns of whatever current Vladivostok players
there are who are becoming strong enough to merit more than regional
attention.

Are these hypothetical strong present-day Vladivostok players going in
greater numbers to Moscow or to Beijing for additional experience? Or, are
they just sitting tight and playing only in Vladivostok? Or, finally, are
are there currently just no Vladivostok players of more than local
significance?

In article , Nick wrote:
(Kevin Croxen) wrote in message ...
I suppose one potential test of the "Vladivostok-Beijing" theory would be to
examine the playing patterns of whatever current Vladivostok players there
are who are becoming strong enough to merit more than regional attention.

Dear Mr. Croxon,

You might have drawn some inferences that go beyond what I intended to suggest.

Here's what I wrote:
"If GM Zaitsev were still alive in Vladivostok today, however, then it might
be more convenient for him to compete against some Chinese GMs in Beijing."

Exactly so. Therefore, one might reason, if it were more convenient for
our hypothetical modern-day living Zaitsev to compete in Beijing than
Moscow, it must also be more convenient for actual living Vladivostok
players to play in Beijing than Moscow. Since chess players, like anyone
else, tend to follow the path of least resistance to greatest rewards, we
might see some evidence of an increased presence of Vladivostok players in
Beijing. If there is, in fact, no evidence of Vladivostok players in
Beijing while they continue to turn up in Moscow, one would be forced to
conclude that either there are no players in Vladivostok of sufficient
strength to compete in a foreign country, as opposed to Moscow, or that it
is in fact not convenient for strong, developing players to hop over the
border to Beijing, in preference to Moscow, and that our hypothetical
modern-day living, playing, Zaitsev would also not have found it
convenient to do so.

What we lack is knowledgeable information about the strength of the
current upper echelon of Vladivostok players, and, as it were, the
"migratory pattern" of these players.

Though it does all begin to sound like a web project: "The Virtual
Zaitsev". Perhaps Tim can incorporate it into his next project after the
chess trivia game --a chess version of "The Sims".

I did not foresee that my casual conjecture about what one individual GM from
Vladivostok *might* do if he were still alive today could be misconstrued as
a formal "'Vladivostok-Beijing' theory" about what all sufficiently strong
chess-players in Vladivostok are or should be doing now.

Here's what I thought at that time:
There are many GMs in Moscow; there are some GMs in Beijing. Vladivostok
is much closer (geographically) to Beijing than to Moscow. So it *might* be
more convenient for a GM from Vladivostok to travel to a tournament in Beijing.

I did not contact Aeroflot in order to confirm the latest specific details of
travel arrangements from Vladivostok to Beijing.

Of course not. We can reserve that step for the eventual article we
publish in "Quarterly of Chess History".

Are these hypothetical strong present-day Vladivostok players going in
greater numbers to Moscow or to Beijing for additional experience? Or, are
they just sitting tight and playing only in Vladivostok? Or, finally, are
there currently just no Vladivostok players of more than local significance?

Given the tendencies of some writers here to address what I did *not* write,
here's some more 'grist for the mill'. When I wrote, "If GM Zaitsev were still
alive in Vladivostok today", I did *not* write anything about the possibility
that a living Alexander Zaitsev might no longer be playing chess. Perhaps
sometime during the hypothetical period (after his real death), 1972-2003,
Zaitsev could have visited Beijing and fallen in love with xiangqi (Chinese
chess) or weiqi (go).

By the way, Vladivostok (which means 'Ruler of the East' in Russian; Mao Zedong
objected to its 'imperialist name') has been compared to San Francisco (or
Wellington, New Zealand) on account of its many hills and seaside views.